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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Jury Duty

I have jury duty tomorrow. I am terrified I will fall asleep on the bench. That is my number one fear. Other fears:2. I will starve to death between breakfast and lunch.3. I will know the accused and be embarrassed for him/her.4. I won't understand the trial.5. They will explain it to me and I still won't understand the trial.6. I will have to admit that I am a Yale graduate who doesn't understand the words of lawyers whose main communicating mission is to explain civil matters to folks who may or may not have graduated from eighth grade.7. I will surreptitiously multitask while on the bench and get publicly scolded for it.8. I will end up on a trial that takes 3 months and therefore go broke and miss HooteNanny and my writing groups.9. Did I mention that I have to be there at 8 and not get to eat lunch till 1pm?10. I will get there and the trial will sound absolutely fascinating--better than Dallas or West Wing or Friends or ER or Mad Men--but that I will be rejected for all the above reasons and regret it for the rest of my life.

3 comments:

I had jury duty when I was 4 months pregnant. I figured, being a pregnant engineer, there'd be no way I'd be selected. Well, I was selected and I am glad I was. The prosecuter thought he had a slam dunk case and (I felt) missed a few opportunities to hammer home some aspects of the case. Some of my fellow jurors had watched too much CSI and didn't trust the evidence. I was able to explain some things, and in the end the jury found the criminal (a drug dealer who was on a mission to kill a rival gang and ended up instead shooting a sheriff and shooting at another officer) guilty and the man was sentenced to 25 to 45 years. I was glad to perform my civic duty. It wasn't fun (obviously), but necessary.

Thanks, Theresa! I just got out of the courthouse. They resolved all 6 cases by 10am, in large part, said the judge, because we were waiting in the wings. I did feel very proud to be of service. And grateful I was not called, but I can see how it could have been really interesting.

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About this Blog

This blog started in 2004 as a way for Nerissa and Katryna Nields to continue to blather to their fans while Katryna was on maternity leave after giving birth to her son. Mostly Nerissa posts because she has a great need to blather, but occasionally Katryna gets a word (or a cartoon) in. These days, we are preparing for the release of our 16th album, The Full Catastrophe. We are also mothers, and love to explore how our children and our roles as moms impacts our writing and music. We have written a book which came out in September 2011 called All Together Singing in the Kitchen: Creative Ways to Make and Listen to Music with Your Family.

Nerissa is the author of two other books; Plastic Angel (Scholastic, 2005), a story of two teen age girls who find purpose and meaning through friendship and music; and How to Be an Adult, a guide for 20 somethings who have need of a road map.

For the purposes of protecting the anonymity of her children, Nerissa's daughter is called "Elle" and her son is called "Jay" in these writings. Her husband Tom is referred to as "Tom," only without the quotation marks.